Summary: This is a densely written piece with many ideas that lead to many more, and it will be difficult to summarize in a small space such as this. First of all, Phelps uses "invention" in its rhetorical sense as well as its more commonly understood sense. She applies the idea to an institution reforming itself, and also to that institution serving as a productive space for its constituents. She critiques some recent theoretical and political moves in universities as being narrowly focused on resisting power and advocates a need for a more productive theory--a "so what" that enables institutions to move forward as spaces where they not only reinvent themselves, but also provide that needed space for faculty, students, community members touched by the university, etc. to grow. A centerpiece of Phelps's discussion is that we want to operate on the edge of chaos--we want to be complex enough to encourage creativity and change, but not anarchy. (She draws from biology to help contextualize this argument.) Phelps argues that this is the type of environment that affords invention: "to be innovative [...] a system must achieve an ordered state poised as close to chaos as possible [...] highly diverse and optimally interconnected. In human terms, an organization in this state would value risk taking, encourage open communication, and tolerate ambiguity, uncertainty, frequent failure, and mess" (81). Also, and (I think) quite challengingly, "the creativity of its members would collectively serve not only their personal intellectual goals but also its common purposes as an organization" (82). Phelps suggests some ways for this to be done, but the function of the piece is not to provide a roadmap, but to operate on a bit higher level. Phelps also explores the conflict between the autonomy of faculty members and the institution's needs, and suggests that this conflict is not insurmountable. She ends with a series of productive questions on institutional invention.
Response: The intellectual density of this piece required me to slow down and examine each point and its implications before moving on (probably a good idea anyway). Phelps's argument struck me as both familiar and new; I realized that I had encountered many of the parts before, but had not seen them put together in this way. I found this piece compelling and a good fit with the readings on how to view a writing program and how to use some of its principles and structure as a model in an institution. I was especially interested at the tensions between chaos and order and between the individual and the collective. I have seen those tensions at work at my college--a push from administration to have a common mandated textbook, an urge from both within and without the writing program for a set order of essays for each course, a resistance from some faculty to attend meetings and hallway comments that no matter what is said, he/she will continue to "do my own thing." And we are a really small program without the pressures to research/publish and without the diversity in faculty positions at a university. This piece speaks directly to these tensions, and while it does not, as I said above, provide a detailed roadmap, it does offer a theoretical goal.
Uses: The structure and concept of a writing program; the structure/revision of a college.
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